Incorporating Stakeholder Voices into Data Dashboards: A Qualitative Study of the State of Texas Mental Health Dashboard.

The U.S. mental health crisis requires new tools to address mental healthcare needs. Data dashboards are a means of sharing community health data on many topics, including mental health. Unfortunately, many "community" dashboards are designed without stakeholder input. This article outlines the creation of the State of Texas Mental Health Dashboard and how researchers incorporated stakeholder feedback throughout its development. Researchers conducted nine focus groups with community stakeholders from two Texas counties. This feedback illustrated some key differences between designers' priorities and what stakeholders considered most relevant. Designers prioritized access to state and local mental health data. While stakeholders found the data useful, they also advocated for tools to identify community mental health resources. Our findings illustrate how excluding stakeholder voices from the design process could have omitted a key element needed to address mental healthcare needs and provides a process for ensuring that local input drives the design process.